Blinded
by Smauglock The Great
Summary: Joan Watson has been living with Sherlock Holmes for a while now, and they've managed to achieve the rank of 'friends'. But when a strange case of spray-paint and murders pops up, putting both their lives in danger, will their relationship b strengthened in the end? Follows 'The Blind Banker'. Fem!Watson x Sherlock. T for language. Second in the 'Joan and Sherlock' series.
1. Row

Joan Watson was standing at one of two self-service checkouts, scanning items from her basket. A short queue had formed behind her as she scanned another item.

"_Unexpected item in bagging area. Please try again._" The machine's automated voice chimed.

Joan held a lettuce in a plastic bag and moved it slowly across the scanner in an attempt to get it to read the barcode.

"_Item not scanned. Please try again._" The voice chimed again.

She straightened up, staring at the device in sheer exasperation. "D'you think you could keep your voice down?" She hissed at the machine.

A while later, she had miraculously gotten everything scanned and inserted her debit card into the chip-and-PIN machine. She typed in her PIN and waited.

"_Card not authorized. Please use an alternative method of payment._"

"Yes, all right! I've got it!" She sighed angrily.

"_Card not authorized. Please use an alternative method of payment._"

Joan reached towards her back pocket, but remembered that she had no other way of paying. "Got nothing." She pointed at the machine. "Right, keep it. Keep that." As the people behind her looked on in surprise, Joan angrily walked away, abandoning her shopping and her card as well.

* * *

Joan walked up the stairs and into the living room of 221B, stopping just inside the room and looking around. Her flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, was calmly reading a book in his armchair, and nothing seemed out of place. "You took your time." He remarked, not looking up from his book.

"Yeah, I didn't get the shopping." She said.

"What?" he looked over the top of his book. "Why not?"

"Because I had a row, in the shop, with a chip-and-PIN machine." Joan replied, more than a little irritated.

Sherlock lowered his book a little. "You…you had a row with a machine?"

"Sort of." Joan admitted. "It sat there and I shouted abuse. Have you got cash?"

He held back an amused smile and nodded towards the kitchen. "Take my card."

Joan walked towards the kitchen where Sherlock's wallet was lying on the table, but before she got there, she turned back to her flatmate indignantly. "You _could_ always go yourself, you know. You've been sitting there all morning. You've not even moved since I left." She picked up the wallet from the table and rummaged through it, looking for a suitable payment card. "And what happened about that case you were offered – the one with the Jaria Diamond?"

"Not interested." He used a piece of paper as a bookmark and shut the book with a loud snap_. _"I sent them a message."

She found a card she could use, but paused to look more closely at the new, long, narrow gouge in the top of the table. She sighed and ran her finger along the cut, rubbing at it in case it's just a mark that could be removed. "Ugh, men." Joan said in an exasperated whisper, shooting a glare at her flatmate; Sherlock shook his head innocently. Joan turned and left the room, walking down the stairs as Sherlock smirked at the fact that his flatmate didn't know about the assassin who came in to the flat not to long before she arrived._  
_

Plus a few toxic chemicals and a slightly nosy landlady here and minus a few attempted murders and missing groceries there, this was a prime example of a fairly average (or what could be _considered_ as fairly average) day for Sherlock and Joan of 221B Baker Street.

* * *

_Hey y'all! This story is a sequel to my previous 'Joan and Sherlock' story, 'A Study in Joan'. I would recommend reading that one first._


	2. Bank

_Hello! Because I'm bored (and really don't want to do homework) I decided to upload a new chapter! Woo!_

* * *

A while later, Joan staggered up the stairs carrying several bags of shopping. "Don't worry about me." She said sarcastically. "I can manage.

Sherlock, who was sitting at the dining table with his hands folded in front of his mouth as he looked at a laptop screen, barely glanced across to Joan, who sighed heavily as she carried the bags into the kitchen and dumped them onto the table. Joan turned around from the kitchen table and frowned as she realized which piece of equipment Sherlock is looking at. "Is that my computer?"

"Of course." Sherlock replied, starting to type on it.

"What?!"

"Mine was in my bedroom."

"What, and you couldn't be bothered to get up?" Sherlock didn't reply to her question. "It's password protected!"

"In a manner of speaking. Took me less than a minute to guess yours." He glanced up at Joan. "Not exactly Fort Knox."

"Right, thank you." She reached over and slammed the lid down as Sherlock pulled his fingers out of the way just in time. Joan then took the laptop across the room and put it down on the floor beside her armchair as she sat down. Her flatmate clasped his hands in the prayer position in front of his mouth as he propped his elbows on the table and looked rather thoughtful. Joan picked up a small pile of letters from the table beside her chair and frowned. "Oh." She flicked through the letters, one of which being red bill which needed urgent paying. She shook her head in resignation. "Need to get a job."

"Oh, dull." Sherlock mumbled, lost in thought. Joan put the letters back onto the table and looked across at her friend for a moment, but glanced at the bills again and awkwardly sat forward.

"Listen, um…if you'd be able to lend me some…" She stops as she realized that Sherlock appeared to be a world of his own. "Sherlock, are you listening?"

"I need to go to the bank." Sherlock stood up suddenly and headed towards the stairs, taking his coat from the hook on the door as he went. Joan frowned, then jumped up and hurried to join him.

* * *

Sherlock lead Joan through revolving glass doors which lead into Shad Sanderson Bank on Old Broad Street. Joan stared at the impressive foyer as she followed her friend. "Yes, when you said we were going to the _bank…_" She got onto an escalator behind Sherlock as the detective observed everything around him closely.

They reached the top of the escalator and Sherlock walked over to the reception desk and addressed one of the receptionists. "Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

A little later, they had been shown into Sebastian Wilkes' office and he walked in and grinned at Sherlock. "Sherlock Holmes."

"Sebastian." They shook hands, Sebastian clasping Sherlock's hand in both of his own.

"Howdy, buddy." Sebastian said. "How long's it been? Eight years since I last clapped eyes on you?"

Sherlock looked back at him with only marginally disguised dislike. Sebastian turned to look at Joan. "This is my _friend_, Joan Watson."

"Friend?" He latched onto the emphasized word.

"Colleague." Joan 'corrected'.

"Right." They shook hands, Sebastian looking at Joan curiously and almost admiringly. "Right…" He threw a brief look at Sherlock that said, 'Didn't _think_ you had a _friend_!' Grinning unpleasantly, he scratched his neck momentarily and Sherlock's gaze fell on his wristwatch. As Sebastian turned away, Joan pursed her lips; she had taken an instant dislike to the man and was regretting correcting Sherlock. "Well, grab a pew. D'you need anything? Coffee, water?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"No." Joan said.

"No?" Sebastian turned to his secretary. "We're all sorted here, thanks." As the secretary left the room, Sebastian sat down at his desk and the other two sat side by side opposite him.

"So, you're doing well." Sherlock stated. "You've been abroad a lot."

"Well, some." Sebastian admitted.

"Flying all the way round the world twice in a month?" Sherlock asked.

Joan frowned in confusion, but Sebastian just laughed and pointed at Sherlock. "Right. You're doing that thing." He looked at Joan. "We were at uni together. This guy here had a trick he used to do."

"It's not a trick." Sherlock mumbled.

Sebastian ignored that and continued talking to Joan. "He could look at you and tell you your whole life story."

"Yes, I've seen him do it." Joan stated."

"Put the wind up everybody. We hated him." Sherlock turned his head away and looked down, his face momentarily filling with pain. "You'd come down to breakfast in the Formal Hall and this freak would know you'd been shagging the previous night."

"I simply observed." Sherlock mumbled again.

"Go on, enlighten me." Sebastian smirked cockily at him. "Two trips a month, flying all the way around the world – you're quite right. How could you tell?" Sherlock opened his mouth, but Sebastian continued speaking smugly. "You're gonna tell me there was, um, a stain on my tie from some special kind of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan."

"No, I…"

"Maybe it was the mud on my shoes!"

Sherlock simply looked back at him for a moment before speaking. "I was just chatting with your secretary outside. _She_ told me." Joan frowned at him, confused by such an 'ordinary' explanation. Sebastian laughed humorlessly, and Sherlock smiled back at him with an equal lack of humor.

Sebastian clapped his hands together, then becomes more serious. "I'm glad you could make it over. We've had a break-in." He then lead them across the trading floor towards another door. "Sir William's office – the bank's former Chairman. The room's been left here like a sort of memorial. Someone broke in late last night."

"What did they steal?" Joan asked.

"Nothing. Just left a little message." Sebastian held his security card against the reader by the door to unlock it and opened the it. Hanging on the plain white wall behind the large desk is a framed painted portrait of a man in a suit – the late Sir William Shad himself. On the wall to the left of the portrait, someone had sprayed what looked like a graffiti 'tag' in yellow paint. The tag looked vaguely like a number '8', but with the top of the number left open, and above it was an almost horizontal straight line. Across the eyes of the portrait, another almost horizontal straight line had been sprayed, run trails going down the whole of the painting. Sebastian lead the way towards the desk and then stepped aside to allow Sherlock a clear view of the wall. Joan moves to stand on the other side of Sebastian, who looked at Sherlock expectantly as the detective stared in fixed concentration at the graffiti.

Later, they were back in Sebastian's office, and he was showing them the security footage of the office from the previous night. "Sixty seconds apart." He flicked the footage back and forth between the stills taken at 23:34:01, which showed the paint on the wall and on the portrait; and a minute earlier, 23:33:01, when the wall and portrait were still clean and paint-free. "So, someone came up here in the middle of the night, splashed paint around, then left within a minute." Sebastian pointed out.

"How many ways into that office?" Sherlock asked.

"Well, that's where this gets really interesting."


	3. Van Coon

Back in the reception area, Sebastian showed them a screen on a computer which had a layout of the trading floor and its surrounding offices. Each indicated door had a light against it, showing its security status. "Every door that opens in this bank, it gets logged right here." He told them. "Every walk-in cupboard, every toilet."

"That door didn't open last night." Sherlock said.

"There's a hole in our security. Find it and we'll pay you – five figures." Sebastian reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a check. "This is an advance. Tell me how he got in, there's a bigger one on its way."

"I don't _need_ an incentive, Sebastian." Sherlock walked away. Joan watched him go, then turned to Sebastian.

"He's, uh, he's kidding you, obviously." She held her hand out. "Sh-shall I look after that for him?" Sebastian handed her the check. "Thanks." She looked at the figure on the check and shook her head in disbelief that that was _only_ the advance.

"Uh, wait." Sebastian pulled out a blank slip of paper and a pen. He quickly jot something down and handed the paper to Joan. "Here. You might need this later." It turned out to be his phone number and the words _C__all Me! :)  
_

* * *

Sherlock had returned to Sir William's office and was taking photographs of the graffiti on his mobile phone. Once he had taken several pictures he turned around. He looked to his right where the floor-to-ceiling windows showed an impressive view of the nearby Swiss Re Tower, better known as 'The Gherkin'.

Frowning and looking away in thought for a moment, he then walked over to the windows and pulled up the blinds, which were covering what is revealed to be a door that led onto a small balcony. Opening the door, he went out onto the balcony and looked at the spectacular view over London before looking down at the very long drop to the ground, hundreds of feet below. Sherlock looked along the balcony and bit his lip thoughtfully before heading back inside.

Shortly afterwards, Sherlock was doing something most might consider to be dancing. On the trading floor, he ducked down behind a desk and rose very slowly upright, staring in concentration at the glass doorway to Sir William's office. He then ducked sideways and hurried across the floor, to the bemusement of the traders. Sherlock continued to scamper around the floor, frequently scurrying sideways and ducking down behind desks before popping up again and peering at the doorway. He danced across the floor again and twirled around a column before backing towards an office on the other side of the floor.

Stopping in that doorway, he moved about, his eyes still fixed on Sir William's office, then turned and went into the office and headed to the other side of the desk. Standing directly behind the chair of whoever works in that room, he saw that he has a clear view of the top of the painting and the new yellow slash across the portrait's eyes. He danced sideways across the room before coming back to his previous position, confirming that that was indeed the only place on the trading floor where the damaged portrait can be seen.

Looking around the room for some identification, he eventually went to the door where two signs were attached to the outside, one showing that that was the office of the Hong Kong Desk Head, and the sign above it giving the name of that person – Edward Van Coon. He slid the top sign out of its holder and headed off.

* * *

Not long afterwards, Sherlock lead Joan back towards the escalators. "So, are you actually going to _call_ Sebastian?"

"Shut up." She hissed at him. "And no, I'm not."

He ignored that part and continued with, "What, am I not _good_ enough for you? Rather hang out with the _normal_ people?"

_"No!_ I'm not interested in him!" Joan sighed, deciding to change the subject. "So; two trips around the world this month. You didn't ask his secretary; you said that just to irritate him." Sherlock smiled but didn't respond. "How _did_ you know?"

"Did you see his watch?" Sherlock asked.

"His watch?"

"The time was right but the date was wrong. Said two days ago. Crossed the dateline twice but he didn't alter it."

"Within a month, though? How'd you get that part?" Joan asked.

"New Breitling. Only came out this February." He stated.

"Okay." Joan nodded. "So d'you think we should sniff around here for a bit longer?"

"Got everything I need to know already, thanks." Sherlock said.

"Hmm?"

"That graffiti was a message for someone at the bank working on the trading floors. We find the intended recipient and…" He deliberately trailed off, allowing Joan to finish the sentence.

"…they'll lead us to the person who sent it." She finished.

"Obvious."

"Well, there's three hundred people up there. Who was it meant for?"

"Pillars."

"What?"

"Pillars and the screens. Very few places you can see that graffiti from. That narrows the field considerably. And of course the message was left at eleven thirty-four last night. That tells us a lot."

"Does it?"

Sherlock continued talking as he and Joan went through the revolving doors and out onto the street. "Traders come to work at all hours. Some trade with Hong Kong in the middle of the night. That message was intended for someone who came in at midnight." He held up the name card to show Joan. "Not many Van Coons in the phone-book." He spotted what he immediately needed and called out loudly, "Taxi!"


	4. Suicide(?)

After a taxi ride, Sherlock and Joan stood outside a block of flats. Sherlock pressed the door buzzer marked 'Van Coon'. Releasing it, he looked into the security camera above the buzzers, waited a couple of seconds, then pressed the buzzer again. There was no response from either buzzer. "So what do we do now?" Joan asked. "Sit here and wait for him to come back?"

Sherlock looked at the number of buzzers on the wall and stepped back to look up the front of the building. He stepped back to the wall and looked at Joan triumphantly. "Just moved in."

"What?"

"The floor above. New label." He pointed to another buzzer which had a handwritten label saying, 'Wintle'.

"Could have just replaced it." She pointed out.

Sherlock pressed that buzzer, then looked at Joan again. "No one ever does that."

A woman's voice came over the intercom. "_Hello?_"

Sherlock turned to the camera and smiled. "Hi! Um, I live in the flat just below you. I-I don't think we've met."

"_No, well, uh, I've just moved in._" Miss Wintle said.

Sherlock turned to throw a brief 'told you so' glance at Joan, then turned back to the camera. "Actually, I've just locked my keys in my flat." He grimaced and bit his lip plaintively.

"_D'you want me to buzz you in?_"

"Yeah. And can I use your balcony?"

"_What?_"

* * *

Not long afterwards, Sherlock had made his way into Ms Wintle's flat and was standing on her balcony. He looked over it to the ground several floors below. He climbed over the side of Ms Wintle's balcony and dropped down onto the one outside Van Coon's flat. Taking another look over the edge, he turned and reached for the handle of the door and found that it was unlocked. He went inside and walked across the very elegantly decorated living room. This was clearly the apartment of a wealthy man, with white leather furniture, shiny black tables and minimal clutter. He looked at everything as he went through the room, and glanced at a pile of books on a table. He walked through the kitchen, looking at the work surface before opening the fridge to reveal that it's full of nothing other than bottles of champagne.

The front door to the flat buzzed. "Sherlock." Joan called from the other side of the door.

He moved into the hall.

"Sherlock, are you okay?"

He opened the door to the small bathroom and glanced inside at the few items on the shelf opposite. He shut the door and walked to a larger door which was closed. He tried it and found that it was locked.

"Yeah, any time you feel like letting me in." Joan called again, annoyed.

Sherlock turned side-on and shoulder-charges the door, causing it to burst open. He walked inside and found a man in a suit and overcoat lying on his back on the bed, dead. There was a pistol on the floor, and the man had a small bullet hole in his right temple.

* * *

Later, the police had been called and a photographer was taking pictures of Van Coon's body lying on the bed. A forensics officer was dusting for fingerprints on the nearby mirror, and distant voices suggest that other forensics officers were elsewhere in the flat. Sherlock had taken his coat off and was in the bedroom putting on a pair of latex gloves. Joan stood beside him. "D'you think he'd lost a lot of money?" She asked. "I mean, suicide is pretty common among City boys."

"We don't know that it was suicide."

"Come on. The door was locked from the inside; you had to climb down the balcony."

Sherlock knelt down by a suitcase on the floor near the bed and opened the lid, looking at the contents. "Been away three days, judging by the laundry." He saw that there was a deep indentation in the clothing inside the case, then straightened up and looked at Joan. "Look at the case. There was something tightly packed inside it."

"Thanks – I'll take your word for it."

"Problem?"

"Yeah, I'm not desperate to root around some bloke's dirty underwear."

He walked to the foot of the bed "Those symbols at the bank – the graffiti. Why were they put there?"

"What, some sort of code?"

"Obviously." Having looked closely at Van Coon's legs and shoes, he moved up and carefully opened the man's jacket to look at his inside pockets. "Why were they painted? If you want to communicate, why not use e-mail?"

"Well, maybe he wasn't answering."

"Oh good. You follow."

"No."

Sherlock threw her a look before moving on to examine Van Coon's hands. "What kind of a message would everyone try to avoid?" Joan frowned in confusion. "What about this morning – those letters you were looking at?"

"Bills."

He gently pried Van Coon's mouth open and pulled out a small black origami flower from inside. "Yes. He was being threatened."

A man's voice came from outside the bedroom. "Bag this up, will you…"

Joan looking closely at the paper flower as Sherlock lifted an evidence bag to put the flower into it. "Not by the gas board…"

The man's voice continued. "…and see if you can get prints off this glass." The man – a police officer - walked into the bedroom.

Sherlock turned and walked towards him. "Ah, Sergeant. We haven't met." He offered his hand to shake.

The young man put his hands on his hips. "Yeah, I know who you are; and I'd prefer it if you didn't tamper with any of the evidence."

Lowering his hand, Sherlock gave him the evidence bag. "I've phoned Lestrade. Is he on his way?"

"He's busy. _I'm_ in charge. And it's not Sergeant; it's Detective Inspector Dimmock."

Sherlock looked at him in surprise, then turned and shared his surprised look with Joan. Dimmock walked out of the room. They follow him into the living room and he handed the bag to one of the forensics team. "We're obviously looking at a suicide." The officer stated.

"That does seem the only explanation of all the facts." Joan said.

Sherlock took his gloves off and turned back to him. "Wrong. It's one _possible_ explanation of _some_ of the facts." He turns to Dimmock. "You've got a solution that you like, but you're choosing to ignore anything you see that doesn't comply with it."

"Like?"

"The wound was on the _right_ side of his head."

"And?"

"Van Coon was left-handed." He went into an elaborate mime as he demonstrated his point, pretending to try and point a gun to his right temple with his left hand. "Requires quite a bit of contortion."

"Left-handed?"

"Oh, I'm amazed you didn't notice." The detective said sarcastically. "All you have to do is look around this flat." He pointed to the table beside the sofa. "Coffee table on the left-hand side; coffee mug handle pointing to the left. Power sockets: habitually used the ones on the left. Pen and paper on the left-hand side of the phone because he picked it up with his right and took down messages with his left. D'you want me to go on?"

"No, I think you've covered it." Joan said tiredly.

"Oh, I might as well; I'm almost at the bottom of the list." Joan nodded as if to say, 'Yeah, I thought you might.' Sherlock pointed towards the kitchen. "There's a knife on the breadboard with butter on the right side of the blade because he used it with his left." He turned to Dimmock with an impatient look on his face. "It's highly unlikely that a left-handed man would shoot himself in the _right_ side of his head. Conclusion: someone broke in here and murdered him. _Only_ explanation of _all_ the facts."

"But the gun:" Dimmock began. "why-"

"He was _waiting_ for the killer. He'd been threatened." Sherlock walked away and started to put on his scarf, coat and gloves.

"What?"

"Today at the bank." Joan explained. "Sort of a warning."

"He fired a shot when his attacker came in."

"And the bullet?"

"Went through the open window."

"Oh, come on! What are the chances of _that_?!"

"Wait until you get the ballistics report. The bullet in his brain wasn't fired from his gun. I guarantee it."

"But if his door was locked from the inside, how did the killer get in?"

"Good! You're finally asking the right questions." Sherlock pulled his hand into his glove dramatically, turned and flounced out of the room. Joan looked round at Dimmock and then pointed apologetically towards the departing detective before following him.


	5. Job

In an unnamed restaurant, Sebastian was having lunch with some work colleagues, telling an apparently hilarious story. "…and he's left trying to sort of cut his hair with a fork, which of course can never be done!"

Sherlock and Joan walked over to the table. "It was a threat." Sherlock stated. "That's what the graffiti meant."

"I'm kind of in a meeting." Sebastian said. "Can you make an appointment with my secretary?"

"I don't think this can wait. Sorry, Sebastian. One of your traders – someone who worked in your office – was killed."

"What?"

"Van Coon." Joan clarified. "The police are at his flat."

"Killed?" He asked, shocked.

"Sorry to interfere with everyone's digestion." Sherlock said sarcastically. "Still wanna make an appointment? Would, maybe, nine o'clock at Scotland Yard suit?"

Sebastian put his glass of water down and nervously ran his finger inside his shirt collar.

* * *

Shortly afterwards, Sebastian and Sherlock had relocated to the toilets in the restaurant, leaving Joan standing just outside. Sebastian finished washing his hands and the pair of them stepped out. "Harrow; Oxford. Very bright guy. Worked in Asia for a while, so…"

"…you gave him the Hong Kong accounts." Joan finished.

Sebastian wiped his slightly damp hands on his pants. "Lost five mill in a single morning; made it all back a week later. Nerves of steel, Eddie had."

"Who'd wanna kill him?" She asked.

"We all make enemies."

"You don't all end up with a bullet through your temple."

Sebastian's phone beeped a text alert. "Not usually. 'Scuse me." He pulled his phone out and looked at the message. "It's my Chairman. The police have been on to him. Apparently, they're telling him it was a suicide."

"Well, they've got it wrong, Sebastian." Sherlock said. "He was murdered."

"Well, I'm afraid they don't see it like that."

The detective looked at him sternly. "Seb."

"…and neither does my boss. I hired you to do a job. Don't get side-tracked." The banker walked away.

Joan waited until he was out of earshot, then turned to Sherlock. "I thought bankers were all supposed to be heartless bastards!"

* * *

The next day, in a doctor's surgery, Doctor Sarah Sawyer was reading Joan's printed Curriculum Vitae. She looks up at Joan sitting opposite her. "Just locum work."

"No, that's fine." Joan said.

"You're, um…well, you're a bit over-qualified."

"I could always do with the money."

"Well, we've got two away on holiday this week, and one's just left to have a baby. Might be a bit mundane for you."

"No; mundane is good sometimes. Mundane works."

"It says here you were a soldier."

"_And_ a doctor."

"Anything else you can do?"

"…I learned the clarinet at school."

"Oh!" Sarah laughed slightly. "Well, I look forward to it!"

* * *

Back in 221B, Sherlock had printed out the photographs of the graffiti near and across Sir William's portrait and had stuck them around the mirror above the fireplace. He was sitting on one of the dining chairs with his back to the dining table. He had his fingers steepled under his chin and was staring at the photos as various symbols in different languages flash in front of his mind's eye. Joan walked in from the landing and dropped her jacket onto her chair. "I said, 'Could you pass me a pen?'" Sherlock said without looking round at her.

Joan looked around the living room as if expecting that Sherlock was talking to someone else. "What? When?"

"'Bout an hour ago."

She sighed. "Didn't notice I'd gone out, then." She picked up a pen from the table beside her chair and, without even looking at Sherlock, tosses the pen in his direction. Sherlock lifts his left hand and catches it without looking away from the photographs on the wall. Joan walked over to the mirror to look more closely at the photos. "Yeah, I went to see about a job at that surgery."

"How was it?"

"It's great."

Sherlock looked at her for a moment, then jerks his head to his right. "Here, have a look."

"Hmm?" Joan walked over to the table and looked at the web page on the open computer.

The lead article on the 'Online News' page is headlined, "_Ghostly killer leaves a mystery for police_". Next to it was a photograph of a bald man, and the article reads: _An intruder who can walk through walls murdered a man in his London apartment last night. Brian Lukis, 41, a freelance journalist from Earl's Court was found shot in his fourth floor flat but all his doors and windows were locked and there were no apparent signs of a break in. A police spokesman said they are still uncertain how the assailant broke in…_

"The intruder who can walk through walls." Joan murmured to herself.

"Happened last night. Journalist shot dead in his flat; doors locked, windows bolted from the inside – exactly the same as Van Coon."

Joan straightened up and looked at her flatmate. "God. You think…"

"He's killed another one."

* * *

At New Scotland Yard, D.I. Dimmock sat at his desk and folded his arms in exasperation as Sherlock stood on the other side of the desk and typed onto a laptop. "Brian Lukis, freelance journalist. Murdered in his flat…" He turned the laptop around to show Dimmock the web page which Joan was looking at earlier. "…doors locked from the inside."

Joan said, "You've gotta admit, it's similar." Dimmock just scowled at the computer. "Both men killed by someone who can…" she hesitated momentarily, as if unable to believe what she was about to say, but persevered onwards "…walk through solid walls."

Sherlock asked, "Inspector, do you seriously believe that Eddie Van Coon was just another City suicide?" Dimmock squirmed in his seat, not meeting Sherlock's eyes. The detective looked up, exasperated, and sighed pointedly. "You _have_ seen the ballistics report, I suppose?"

Dimmock nodded. "Mmm."

"And the shot that killed him:" Sherlock continued. "was it fired from his own gun?"

"No." Dimmock answered reluctantly.

"No. So this investigation might move a bit quicker if you were to take my word as gospel." Dimmock looked back at him silently. Sherlock leaned forward over the desk and spoke quietly but intensely into his face. "I've just handed you a murder inquiry." He continued louder, nodding towards the picture of Lukis on the computer. "Five minutes in his flat."


	6. Flat (and announcement)

_Okay, apologies for getting this out late. You all prolly hate me and wish to kill me, even if I'm still in the process of writing this. _

_I wrote this Author's Note to make an announcement- I shan't be continuing the 'Joan and Sherlock' series after I finish this story. It just takes up a hell of a lot of my imagination, and those of you who've read my other fic, "Before Now", are prolly preparing the pitchforks to skewer me with because I've been so damn busy with this that I haven't gotten a chance to update._

_So, in a gamble of sanity(or lack therof), I decided to cancel this series in favor of my first story._ **_BUT:_** _To those brave souls out there who want to take up the challenge, I will be willing to pass this on to you. I'll announce the lucky winner at the end of this story. (PM me.) Good luck.  
_

_Without further ado, Chapter motherf*cking six._

* * *

At Lukis' flat, Sherlock ducked under the police tape at the bottom of the stairs inside the door of the flat. He went upstairs, followed by Dimmock and Joan. Looking around at everything as he went, he walked into the living room. There was an open, empty suitcase on the floor. Nearby on the carpet was a black origami flower, similar to the one that Sherlock had pulled from Van Coon's mouth. There were books everywhere- on the desk, on bookshelves and scattered about on the floor. Several open newspapers were also lying on everywhere.

Sherlock walked over to the kitchen area and looked through the window at the nearby rooftops of lower buildings. Pushing the net curtain back for a better look, he smirked. "Four floors up. _That's_ why they think they're safe. Put a chain across the door and bolt it shut; think they're impregnable." He walked into the middle of the room again. "They don't reckon for one second that there's another way in." He turned back towards the stairs and saw a skylight above the landing.

"I don't understand." Dimmock said, rather stupidly.

Sherlock stepped out onto the landing. "You're dealing with a killer who can climb." He hopped up on a step stool to get closer to the skylight, which was high up on the angled roof.

"What are you doing?" The young D.I. asked.

"He clings to the walls like an insect." The detective unhooked the latch and pushed the window upwards. "That's how he got in." He said softly, almost to himself.

"What?!"

"Climbed up the side of the walls, ran along the roof, dropped in through this skylight."

"You're not serious! Like Spiderman?!"

"He scaled six floors of a Docklands apartment building, jumped the balcony to kill Van Coon."

"Oh, ho-hold on!" Dimmock laughed in utter disbelief.

"And, of course, that's how he got into the bank. He ran along the window ledge and onto the terrace." Sherlock stepped down onto the landing and looked around again. "We have to find out what connects these two men." His eyes fell on the pile of books scattered up the side of the staircase. Jumping down a few stairs, he picked up one particular book, which had fallen open at its front page, which showed that it had been borrowed from West Kensington Library. Slamming the book shut, he took it with him as he headed off down the stairs.

* * *

After a taxi journey, Sherlock and Joan were once again on an escalator, this time inside West Kensington Library. Sherlock found his way to the aisle where Lukis' book came from. "Date stamped on the book is the same day that he died."

Checking the reference number stuck to the bottom of the book's spine, he went to the correct place along the shelves and started pulling out books and examining them. Joan pulled out some books on a nearby shelf on the other side of the aisle and immediately got lucky. "Sherlock."

Sherlock turned and saw Joan staring into the gap left by the books she removed. Stepping over to her, he reached to the shelf and pulled out some books with one hand. Pulling out another handful of books with his other hand, he revealed that spray painted on the back of the shelf were the same two symbols that had been sprayed across Sir William Shad's office.

* * *

Back at 221B, photographs of the shelf had been added to the earlier photos stuck around the mirror in the living room. The duo was standing at the fireplace, looking at the pictures "So, the killer goes to the bank, leaves a threatening cipher for Van Coon; Van Coon panics, returns to his apartment, locks himself in." Sherlock recapped. "Hours later, he dies."

"The killer finds Lukis at the library; he writes the cipher on the shelf where he knows it'll be seen; Lukis goes home." Joan continued with their latest facts.

"Late that night, he dies too." He finished.

"_Why_ did they die, Sherlock?" She asked softly.

Sherlock ran his fingers over the line painted across Sir William's face. "Only the cipher can tell us." He said, thoughtfully tapping his finger against the photo as his expression sharpened. Apparently, he had an idea.


	7. ASBO

_The ownership of this series is still up for grabs, guys. If no-one claims it before I've finished, it'll be left to rot. :/_

* * *

In Trafalgar Square, Sherlock and Joan were walking through the center of the square, heading towards the National Gallery. "The world's run on codes and ciphers, Joan." Sherlock said. "From the million-pound security system at the bank, to the PIN machine you took exception to, cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."

"Yes, okay, but…" Joan began.

"…but it's all computer-generated: electronic codes, electronic ciphering methods." He finished. "This is different. It's an ancient device. Modern code-breaking methods won't unravel it."

"Where are we headed?" She asked.

"I need to ask some advice."

"What?! Sorry?"

Sherlock threw her a black look as Joan smiled in disbelief. "You heard me perfectly. I'm not saying it again."

"_You_ need advice?"

"On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert." He lead Joan towards the entrance to the National Gallery…

…and straight around it to the rear of the building where a young man has spray-painted, onto a solid grey metal door, the image of a policeman holding a rifle in his hands, with a pig's snout in place of a human nose. A large canvas bag was at the man's feet and he was holding spray cans in both hands. With one of the cans he had sprayed his tag, "RAZ", below the image and he was adding the finishing touches to his 'artwork'. He continued spraying, unperturbed, as Sherlock and Joan approached. "Part of a new exhibition." He said.

"Interesting." Sherlock said (ironically) with little interest.

"I call it…Urban Bloodlust Frenzy." Raz chuckled.

"Catchy." Joan commented.

Raz continued, still spraying onto the wall, "I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes round that corner." He looked round to Sherlock. "Can we do this while I'm workin'?"

Sherlock took his phone from his coat pocket and held it out towards Raz, who turned around and tossed one of the spray cans at Joan. She instinctively caught it, and looked at Sherlock and Raz in bewilderment. Raz took Sherlock's phone and scrolled through the photographs of the yellow ciphers from Sir William's office and the library. "Know the author?" Sherlock asked.

"Recognize the paint." Raz commented. "It's like Michigan; hardcore propellant. I'd say zinc."

"What about the symbols: d'you recognise them?"

"Not even sure it's a proper language."

"Two men have been murdered, Raz. Deciphering this is the key to finding out who killed them."

"What, and this is all you've got to go on? It's hardly much, now, is it?"

"Are you gonna help us or not?"

"I'll ask around."

"Somebody _must_ know something about it."

"Oi!" A voice called at the three of them. They looked round and see two Community Support Officers hurrying towards them. Sherlock instantly grabbed his phone from Raz and ran off in the opposite direction, while Raz dropped his spray can, kicked his bag towards Joan, and also ran off. Joan meekly turned towards the officers. "What the hell do you think you're doing? This gallery is a listed public building."

"No, no, wait, wait. It's not _me_ who painted that." She held up the spray can. "I was just holding this for…" She turned and seemed to realize for the first time that she had been abandoned; she sighed quietly.

The officer kicked open the bag to reveal more spray cans inside, then looked at Joan pointedly. "Bit of an enthusiast, are we?"

Joan looked blankly at him and then stared at the graffiti on the door, wondering how she was going to explain her way out of it.

* * *

In 221B, Sherlock was standing at the fireplace again. The mirror was almost completely covered, since he had added several sheets of paper with various ciphers and pictograms on them. He had his head lowered and was consulting a book. A slamming door announced Joan's return, and she walked immediately into the living room, presumably the only way she could think of to signify that not only was she home, but she was mad as hell, and her anger was directed directly at her flatmate at that moment. "You've been a while." Sherlock commented, not even looking round at her.

Joan walked a few more paces into the room, her shoulders rigid and her fists clenched. She stopped, blinking as she fights to hold onto her anger, then turned to Sherlock and said tightly, "Yeah, well, you know how it is. Custody sergeants don't really like to be hurried, do they?" She started pacing, an angry half-smile half-grimace on her face. "Just formalities: fingerprints, charge sheet; and I've gotta be in Magistrates Court on Tuesday."

"What?" He said absently, not having payed attention to a single thing she said.

"Me, Sherlock, in court on Tuesday." She said angrily, then put on a rough London accent. "_They're givin' me an ASBO!_"

"Good. Fine." He said, still not paying attention.

"You wanna tell your little pal he's welcome to go and own up any time." She added, still tightly.

Sherlock slammed his book shut. "This symbol: I still can't place it." He turned and put the book down and walked over to Joan, who had just started to take her jacket off, and pulled the jacket back onto her shoulders. "No, I need you to go to the police station…"

"Oi, oi, oi!" Joan shouted indignantly as he turned her towards and steered her out of the door.

"…and ask about the journalist." He finished.

An exasperated, "Oh, Jesus!" escaped her lips.

He grabbed his own coat from the back of the door. "His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements." They went downstairs and out onto the street. "Gonna go and see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somewhere they'll coincide."

Sherlock walked off down the street. Joan saw a taxi coming around the corner and hailed it. As it pulled over to the curb, she saw an Oriental-looking woman with dark hair and wearing dark sunglasses standing on the other side of the road, taking a photograph with her camera is aimed in her direction. Joan bent to the taxi driver's window. "Scotland Yard."

"Right."

Joan got into the back of the taxi and glanced round to the other side of the road as she sat down. There was no sign of the woman.

* * *

In Shad Sanderson Bank, Sherlock stood in Van Coon's office beside his personal assistant, Amanda, who was looking at an online calendar. "Flew back from Dalian Friday. Looks like he had back-to-back meetings with the sales team." She said.

"Can you print me up a copy?" He asked.

"Sure."

"What about the day he died? Can you tell me where he was?"

Amanda looked back at the screen. "Sorry. Bit of a gap." Sherlock looked away, rather frustrated. Amanda then realized something. "I have all his receipts."

* * *

A while after Joan arrived at New Scotland Yard, she watched Dimmock standing at a desk and rummaging through a box of Brian Lukis' possessions. "Your friend…" He began to say.

"Listen: whatever you say, I'm behind you one hundred percent." Joan interjected.

"…he's an arrogant sod."

"Well, _that_ was mild!" She was sincerely amazed. "People say a lot worse than that."

Dimmock handed her a diary. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? The journalist's diary?"

Joan took the diary and flicked through it, opening it at a page which had been bookmarked with a boarding pass to Dalian DLC (Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport) to London LHR (London Heathrow Airport) on Zhuang Airlines.

* * *

Back at Shad Sanderson Bank, Amanda had spread out Van Coon's receipts on her desk. "What kind of a boss was he, Amanda?" Sherlock asked her. "Appreciative?"

"Um, no. That's not a word I'd use." She responded. "The only things Eddie appreciated had a big price tag."

Sherlock knelt down on the floor to give himself easier access to the receipts. As he was taking his gloves off, he saw a pump-action bottle of luxury hand lotion at the back of the desk. "Like that hand cream. _He_ bought that for you, didn't he?"

Fiddling nervously with a pin in her hair, Amanda looked at him in surprise. Sherlock shuffled through the paperwork and picked up a receipt from a licensed taxi. Dated 22 March 2010 and timed at 10:35, the receipt was for £18.50. He handed it up to Amanda. "Look at this one. Got a taxi from home on the day he died. Eighteen pounds fifty."

"That would get him to the office." Amanda noted.

"Not rush hour; check the time. Mid-morning. Eighteen would get him as far as…"

"The West End. I remember him saying."

Sherlock found a London Underground ticket with the same date on it and issued at 'Piccadilly'. He handed that up to Amanda. "Underground. Printed at one in Piccadilly."

"So he got a Tube back to the office. Why would he get a taxi into town and then the Tube back?"

"Because he was delivering something heavy. Didn't want to lug a package up the escalator."

"Delivering?"

"To somewhere near Piccadilly Station. Dropped the package, delivered it and then…" Sherlock found another receipt and stood up as he looked at it. It was from the Piazza Espresso Bar Italiano. "…stopped on his way. He got peckish."


	8. Hangzhou

Some time later Sherlock, had found the espresso bar Van Coon stopped at and was talking to himself out loud as he walked past it. "So you bought your lunch from here en route to the station, but where were you headed from? Where did the taxi drop you…?" He had been spinning around as he walked and bumped into someone approaching from behind, who was also distracted and not looking where she was going; it was Joan, who was engrossed in looking down at Lukis' diary.

She looked surprised to see him there. "Right."

Sherlock began speaking in rapid fire,"Eddie Van Coon brought a package here the day he died – whatever was hidden inside that case. I've managed to piece together a picture using scraps of information…"

"Sherlock…"

"…credit card bills, receipts. He flew back from China, then he came here."

"Sherlock…"

"Somewhere in this street; somewhere near. I don't know where, but…"

Joan pointed to the other side of the road. "That shop over there."

Sherlock looked at the shop, then looked back to Joan, frowning. "How can you tell?"

"Lukis' diary." She showed Sherlock the entry. "He was here too. He wrote down the address." She turned and headed towards the shop.

"Oh." He followed after his friend.

* * *

Sherlock and Joan walked into a touristy shop titled 'The Lucky Cat', which consisted largely of decorative cats which were sitting up on their hind legs with one front paw raised. Some of the paws were waving back and forth. "Hello." Joan greeted the female Chinese shop keeper politely.

They look around at all the items on display. The shop keeper lifted one of the cats from the desk. "You want lucky cat?"

"No, thanks. No." Joan said. Sherlock looked round at her and smirked.

"Ten pound. Ten pound!" The shop keeper persisted.

"No." Joan smiled awkwardly.

"I think your husband there, he will like!" The shop keeper gestured to Sherlock.

"No, thank you, but he's not my husband." Joan walked over to one of the tables, which had small ceramic painted handle-less cups on it; Sherlock was examining a rack displaying clay statues. John picked up one of the cups and turned it over to look at the price tag. Her hand began to tremble as she saw the Chinese symbol stuck on the underside. It was the same sort-of upside down eight with a line above it, which was painted beside Sir William's portrait and on the library shelf. "Sherlock."

Sherlock, who had picked up one of the statues, put it back on the shelf and came over to him. "The label there."

"Yes, I see it."

"Exactly the same as the cipher." Clearing her throat awkwardly, she put the cup back. Sherlock lifted his head as it all started to make sense to him.

Shortly afterwards, they left the shop and were walking down the street. "It's an ancient number system! Hangzhou. These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library." Sherlock walked over to a greengrocer's, which had some of its wares on display outside the shop. The various boxes had handwritten signs on them giving the names of the vegetables in both Chinese and English, and underneath was the cost of that particular item in both Hangzhou and English. He picked up various signs, checking the symbols. "Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect."

Joan spotted a sign with the upside down eight and slash above it and its English equivalent beneath. "It's a fifteen!" She said. "What we thought was the artist's tag – it's a number fifteen."

"And the blindfold – the horizontal line? That was a number as well." He showed Joan a price tag which has the almost-horizontal line at the top, and "£1" written underneath. He grinned triumphantly. "The Chinese number one, John."

"We've found it!" She said almost happily.

Sherlock turned and walked away. As Joan smiled and turned to follow him, she saw the same woman who was taking a photograph outside 221 standing nearby. Still wearing her dark sunglasses, she again had her camera raised and pointed towards Joan as she took a picture. Someone walked in front of the woman, obscuring Joan's view of her for a moment, and by the time the person had passed, she had vanished. Joan frowned, then followed after her friend.

* * *

Shortly afterwards, they were staking out The Luck Cat. Sitting at a table in the window of the restaurant opposite the shop, Sherlock was writing the two Hangzhou numbers and their English equivalents onto a paper napkin. Joan sat opposite him, also writing notes. "Two men travel back from China." She noted. "Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium. What did they see?"

"It's not what they saw;" Sherlock stated. "it's what they both brought back in those suitcases."

"And you don't mean duty free." A waitress brought over a plate of food and put it down in front of Joan. "Thank you."

"Think about what Sebastian told us; about Van Coon – about how he stayed afloat in the market."

"Lost five million…" Joan began, piling some food up on her fork.

"…made it back in a week." Sherlock finished for her as she took a mouthful.

"Mmm."

"That's how he made such easy money."

Joan swallowed her food. "He was a smuggler. Mmm." She took another mouthful of food.

"A guy like him – it would have been perfect." Sherlock noted. "Business man…"

"Mmm-hmm."

"…making frequent trips to Asia. And Lukis was the same…a journalist writing about China."

"Mmm."

"Both of them smuggled stuff out, and The Lucky Cat was their drop-off."

"But why did they die?" Joan asked. "I mean, it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop and deliver the goods, why would someone threaten them and kill them after the event, after they'd finished the job?"

Sherlock sat back thoughtfully for a few seconds, then smiled as he realized the answer. "What if one of them was light-fingered?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Stole something; something from the hoard."

"And the killer doesn't know which of them took it, so he threatens them both. Right."

Sherlock looked out of the window towards the shop, then looked up to the windows above it. Looking down to the ground floor level again, his gaze sharpened. "Remind me…" He focused on a Yellow Pages phone directory sealed in a plastic wrapper which had been left outside the door to the flat beside The Lucky Cat. "…when was the last time that it rained?" Without waiting for a reply, he stood up and left the restaurant. Joan sat back in exasperation, but then dutifully got up and followed.


	9. Soo Lin

Over the road, Sherlock bent down to the Yellow Pages book. The plastic wrapper still had drops of water on it, and the top of it had broken open a little, exposing the book. Sherlock ran his fingers over the top of the wet, exposed pages of the directory. "It's been here since Monday." He straightens up and pressed the doorbell to someone named Soo Lin Yao's doorbell. He only waited a couple of seconds, then looked to his right and headed off in that direction. There was an alleyway beside the flat and he and Joan walked down it. "No-one's been in that flat for at least three days."

"Could've gone on holiday." Joan pointed out.

"D'you leave your windows open when you go on holiday?" Sherlock reached the rear of the building and looked up to see a cantilevered metal fire escape above his head. Taking a short run at it, he jumped up and grabbed the end, pulling it down towards him until it touched the ground, then ran up the steps towards the open window of the flat. As he reached the top, the ladder swung back to the horizontal position behind him.

"Sherlock!" Realizing that she was far too short to be able to pull the ladder down again, Joan turned and ran back along the alley to the front of the building.

Sherlock climbed in through the window into the kitchen, then cried out in muffled alarm as he almost knocked a vase of flowers off the table beside the window. Catching it before it hit the floor, he looked down and saw a wet patch on the rug in the precise place where the vase would have hit if it had reached the floor. Straightening up, he called out of the open window, unaware that Joan was no longer there. "Someone else has been here."

Putting the vase back onto the table, he looked around, talking too quietly for Joan to hear, even if she _was_ still nearby. "Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase just like I did." He looked round the kitchen, then bent down to the washing machine and opened it. Taking out an item of Soo Lin's unmentionables, he sniffed it and grimaced.

Downstairs, Joan rang the doorbell.

Sherlock put the item back into the washing machine and pushed the door closed, then reached for a tea towel hanging up nearby.

"D'you think maybe you could let me in this time?" Joan called from outside.

The detective felt the tea towel, finding that it was dry, and moved onwards. Downstairs, Joan bent down to the letterbox, pushed it open and called through the gap. "Can you _not_ keep doing this, please?"

Sherlock took a pint of milk from the fridge and took off the lid and sniffed the contents. Putting the bottle back into the fridge, he called out, "I'm not the first."

With the everyday noise of the street all around him, Joan couldn't hear what he was saying. She bent down and put her ear to the letterbox which she was still holding open. "What?"

"Somebody's been in here before me!" He shouted, louder.

"_What are you saying?_"

Sherlock had taken his pocket magnifier from his coat and looked down to where a foot had messed up the rug, leaving an impression of the intruder's shoe. "Size eight feet." He said, not as loudly, as he pushed through the beaded curtain between the kitchen and the bedroom/living room, still examining the rug. "Small, but…athletic." He said, now talking more to himself than Joan. He straightened up, looking thoughtful.

Outside, Joan let go of the letterbox and straightened up, sighing in exasperation. "I'm wasting my breath." She walked a couple of paces away from the door, glaring around in annoyance, then turned back and rang the doorbell again.

Inside, Sherlock picked up a framed photograph of two young Chinese children – a boy and a girl. A fresh hand-print was on the glass where someone had pressed their fingers against the image of the girl. Sherlock was holding his magnifier over the fingerprints as he gently ran his gloved fingers along them to gauge the size. "Small, strong hands." He noted softly, closing the magnifier and putting the photograph down again. "Our acrobat." He frowned, looking round. "But why didn't he close the window when he left…?" He stopped as he realized the truth and rolled his eyes at himself. "Oh, stupid. _Stupid_. Obvious. He's still here."

He looked around the room and saw an ornately decorated free-standing folding screen shielding the bed. Putting his magnifier into his pocket, he walked carefully towards it and grabbed the edge of the screen, pulling it back. Before he could do anything else, someone quickly wrapped a long white silk scarf around his neck from behind and bundled him to the floor on his back, strangling him. Sherlock grabbed at the scarf, trying to relieve the pressure on his neck but the assailant – dressed all in black – continued to choke him.

Outside, Joan bent to the letterbox and flipped it open again. "_Any_ time you want to include me."

Inside, Sherlock called out faintly, attempting to free himself. "Joan! Joan!"

Outside, Joan straightened up again and shook her head in frustration, pacing in front of the door. "No, I'm Sherlock Holmes and I always work alone because no-one else can compete with…" She stormed back to the letterbox, flipped it open and shouted through it. "…my MASSIVE INTELLECT!" She dropped the letterbox again. "Couldn't bother letting me in; you're practically standing me up, you know!"

Inside, Sherlock was starting to lose consciousness. As his struggles became weaker and his hands fell clear of the scarf, the attacker released his grip.

Outside, Joan angrily rang the doorbell again.

Inside, as Sherlock lied still on the floor, his eyes half-closed, the assailant shoved something into Sherlock's coat pocket, then got up and ran off. Sherlock choked and coughed, tugging the scarf from around his neck and rolling onto his front before getting up onto his hands and knees. As the attacker disappeared through the beaded curtain into the kitchen, Sherlock groaned and pulled his own scarf loose, gasping as he began to get his breath back.

Outside, Joan looked at her watch in irritation and shook her head, considering leaving.

Inside, breathing a little better, Sherlock sat up on his heels, rummaged in his coat pocket and pulled out a black origami paper flower. He looked at it for a moment, then stumbled to his feet, wobbling for a moment before pulling himself together and heading for the stairs.

A few moments later he opened the front door downstairs. Joan made an exasperated sound and glared at him. When Sherlock began to speak, his voice was croaky. "The, uh, milk's gone off and the washing's starting to smell. Somebody left here in a hurry three days ago."

"Somebody?" Joan asked, a little concerned about the sound of his voice.

Sherlock nodded, his voice still rough. "Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her." He looked down and bent over to pick something off the floor."

"But how, exactly?" She asked.

He picked up a folded envelope. On the back of it was written:

_Soo Lin_  
_Please ring me_  
_tell me you're_  
_OK_  
_Andy_

He unfolded the envelope and looked at the front of it. Printed in the bottom right hand corner was:

NATIONAL  
ANTIQUITIES  
MUSEUM

"Maybe we could start with this." He said, walking out, closing the door behind him, and heading off down the road.

Joan followed him and asked, "You've gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?"

"I'm fine." Sherlock responded, coughing.

* * *

At the National Antiquities Museum, Sherlock was pacing around a display area as he interviewed a worker named Andy, the same one who wrote the note to Soo Lin. "When was the last time that you saw her?"

"Three days ago, um, here at the museum." Andy replied. Sherlock focused briefly on a glass case showing some of the clay teapots. Most of them were dull, but one was shining in the light. "This morning they told me she'd resigned just like that." He continued. Sherlock looked at another case containing some jade figurines, then at a piece of artwork. "Just left her work unfinished."

Sherlock turned to him. "What was the last thing that she did on her final afternoon?"

* * *

Andy brought Sherlock and Joan to the basement archive, and turned the lights on as he lead them in. "She does this demonstration for the tourists – a-a tea ceremony. So she would have packed up her things and just put them in here."

He lead them to the open stack and started turning a handle at the end to widen the gap. Joan went to stand behind him and looked into the stack, but Sherlock noticed something more interesting in the shadows further along the room. He walked closer to it. On a stand was a life-sized sculpture of a nude woman…and yellow paint has been spray painted across the front of it. An almost horizontal straight line went across the eyes, and over the body has been sprayed the open eight with the almost horizontal line above it. Andy and Joan turned round and saw what he had found._  
_


	10. Railway

Outside the museum, night had fallen as Sherlock and Joan came out. "We have to get to Soo Lin Yao." Sherlock said.

"If she's still alive." Joan said, rather dismally.

"Sherlock!" They both turned as Raz ran over to join them."

"Oh, look who it is." Joan half-mumbled.

"Found something you'll like." He said to Sherlock, trotting off with the detective immediately following. Joan headed off after them a little more slowly.

Shortly afterwards, the three of them were walking across Hungerford Bridge, heading towards the south side of the river. "Tuesday morning, all you've gotta do is turn up and say the bag was yours." Joan was still trying to get out of court.

"Forget about your court date." Sherlock told as they continued onwards, unaware that the Chinese woman with the dark sunglasses was watching them.

* * *

They arrived at South Bank Skate Park. Raz lead the other two across the under-croft. A boy had just done some kind of clever jump on his pushbike, and a girl somewhere shouted at him, "Dude, that was rad!"

"If you want to hide a tree, then a forest is the best place to do it, wouldn't you say?" Sherlock asked no one in particular. "People would just walk straight past, not knowing, unable to decipher the message."

Raz pointed to a particular area on the heavily-graffitied walls. "There. I spotted it earlier." Amongst all the other paint, there were slashes of the yellow paint forming Chinese symbols. Some of them were already partially painted over by other artists' tags and pictures.

"They _have_ been in here." Sherlock said to himself, then turned to Raz. "And that's the exact same paint?"

"Yeah."

"Joan, if we're going to decipher this code, we're gonna need to look for more evidence." Sherlock turned to his flatmate.

The two of them then split up and began searching. Sherlock walked along the end of a railway line and found an abandoned spray can on the tracks. Kneeling down to pick it up, he put the end of his flashlight into his mouth and ran a thumb over the yellow paint on the nozzle, then sniffed the nozzle.

Joan walked through an underpass, looking closely at the graffiti and posters on the walls as she went.

Sherlock was now walking past a wall which had many posters glued to it. One of the posters attracted his attention and he teared off the bottom corner of it and took it with him as he continued onwards.

Joan was now out on the railway lines. Her flashlight picked out splashes of yellow paint on the sleepers and on the rails, going in an almost straight line. Then she raises her light to a brick wall of a maintenance shed, which was about fifteen feet wide. She stepped back, her mouth open in surprise as she began to realize that the entire wall was covered with large yellow Chinese symbols.

Later, she had finally tracked down Sherlock, who was currently looking at the side of a parked rail freight container. "Answer your phone!" She scolded him. "I've been calling you! I've found it." She turned around again and the two of them ran off into the night side by side, Sherlock's coat billowing behind him.

Back at the wall, Joan lead Sherlock towards it, but her mouth drops open in surprise again, but this time for a different reason. The entire wall was now blank. "It's been painted over!" She stammered in surprise. Sherlock shone his flashlight around the area as Joan continued to stare at the wall in disbelief. "I don't understand. It-it was here…" She stumbled backwards. "…ten minutes ago. I _saw_ it. A whole load of graffiti!"

"Somebody doesn't want me to see it." Sherlock said. He turned and grabbed the sides of Joan's head with both hands.

"Hey, Sherlock, what are you doing…?"

"Shh, Joan, concentrate. I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes."

"No, what? Why? Why?" Sherlock lowered his hands to hold Joan by the upper arms. "What are you doing?!"

Sherlock started to slowly spin them around on the spot, staring intensely into Joan's eyes. "I need you to maximize your visual memory. Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?"

"Yeah."

"Can you remember it?"

"Yes, definitely."

"Can you remember the pattern?"

"Yes!"

"How _much_ can you remember it?"

"Well, don't worry…"

"Because the average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent accurate."

"Yeah, well, don't worry – I remember all of it."

"Really?" Sherlock said, disbelievingly.

"Yeah, well at least I _would…_" Joan pulled herself free. "…if I can get to my pockets!" She rummaged in her jacket pocket. "I took a photograph." She took out her phone and pulled up a flash photo she had taken of the wall, which showed all the symbols clearly. She gave the phone to Sherlock, who took it and looked embarrassed as Joan sighed and turned away.

* * *

The photograph had been blown up into small sections and then printed out; all the pictures were stuck on the mirror above 221B's fireplace. The numerical value of each symbol had been written against it. Sherlock was standing at the fireplace, looking at the pictures closely and had spotted a pattern. "Always in pairs, John."

Joan was sitting at the dining table with her back to the fireplace and her head propped up in her hands. Sherlock's voice woke her up. She blinked and turns her head, squinting round at her friend. "Hmm?"

"Numbers come with partners."

"God, I need to sleep…"

"Why did he paint it so near the tracks?"

"No idea."

"Thousands of people pass by there every day."

"Just twenty minutes…"

"…Of course." Sherlock realized something, looking at a photo of the full wall, and smiled triumphantly. "Of course! He wants information. He's trying to communicate with his people in the underworld. Whatever was stolen, he wants it back." He ran his finger over the symbols. "Somewhere here in the code." He pulled three photographs off the wall and turned towards the door. "We can't crack this without Soo Lin Yao."

"Oh, good…" Tiredly, Joan got up to follow, wishing for a few minuets' break.


	11. Zhi Zhu

Back at National Antiquities Museum, Sherlock and Joan were back with Andy in the same display room they met him in earlier. "Two men who traveled back from China were murdered, and their killer left them messages in the Hangzhou numerals." Sherlock told him.

"Soo Lin Yao's in danger." Joan continued. "Now, that cipher – it was just the same pattern as the others. He means to kill her as well."

"Look, I've tried everywhere: um, friends, colleagues. I-I don't know where she's gone. I mean, she could be a thousand miles away." Andy explained.

Sherlock turned his head away in exasperation, but his gaze focused on the nearby glass case displaying the teapots. "What are you looking at?" Joan asked him.

He responded by pointing at the case as he walked towards it. "Tell me more about those teapots."

"Th-the pots were her obsession." Andy said. "Um, they need urgent work. If-if they dry out, then the clay can start to crumble. Apparently you have to just keep making tea in them."

Sherlock bent down to look more closely at the shelf. "Yesterday, only one of those pots was shining. Now there are two."

* * *

Much later, a shadow moved across the dimly lit display room, and a hand reached into the glass case to take out one of the not-shiny teapots. The shadow moved away again. Not long afterwards, Soo Lin Yao was in an almost-dark restoration room, pouring tea into the teapot on the desk in front of her. She picked up the lid and carefully stroked it around the rim as, behind her, a silhouette appeared on the other side of a window in the door. Unaware of this, she picked up the teapot and pours some of the liquid into a pair of cups. Pouring more of the tea into the tray on which the cups are standing, she swilled the teapot around to cover the outside with the drips. A figure steps up beside her.

"Fancy a biscuit with that?" Before Sherlock finished the sentence, she gasped in fright and turned towards him, the teapot dropping from her terrified fingers. He reacted instantly and bent his knees to reach down and catch the teapot before it hit the floor.

He looked up at her. "Centuries old. Don't wanna break that." He slowly straightened up and handed the teapot back to her. As she took it, he reached out and flicked a switch on the desk, turning on the lights underneath the surface. He smiled slightly at her. "Hello."

* * *

Joan had arrived not to much later, and she and Soo Lin were sitting on stools on opposite sides of the table. Sherlock stood at the end of the table. "You saw the cipher." Soo Lin said. "Then you know he is coming for me."

"You've been clever to avoid him so far." Sherlock said."

"I had to finish…to finish this work. It's only a matter of time. I know he will find me."

"Who is he? Have you met him before?"

Soo Lin nodded. "When I was a girl, living back in China. I recognize his…'signature'."

"The cipher."

"Only _he_ would do this. Zhi Zhu."

"Zhi Zhu?" Joan interjected, unfamiliar with the Chinese words.

"The Spider." Sherlock translated.

Putting her right foot up on the opposite knee, Soo Lin unlaced her shoe and took it off. On the underside of her heel was a black tattoo of a lotus flower inside a circle. "You know this mark?"

"Yes." Sherlock nodded. "It's the mark of a Tong."

"Hmm?" Joan was a bit confused.

"Ancient crime syndicate based in China." He explained.

She nodded her understanding and turned back to Soo Lin as she continued, "Every foot soldier bears the mark; everyone who hauls for them."

"'Hauls'?" Joan looked up at the Chinese girl. Her eyes widened. "Y-you mean you were a smuggler?"

Soo Lin lowered her gaze again and put her shoe back on. "I was fifteen. My parents were dead. I had no livelihood; no way of surviving day to day except to work for the bosses."

"Who are they?" Sherlock inquired.

"They are called the Black Lotus. By the time I was sixteen, I was taking thousands of pounds' worth of drugs across the border into Hong Kong. But I managed to leave that life behind me. I came to England." She smiled a little. "They gave me a job here. Everything was good; a new life."

"Then he came looking for you." Sherlock said.

"Yes." Upset, Soo Lin swallowed before continuing tearfully. "I had hoped after five years maybe they would have forgotten me, but they never really let you leave. A small community like ours – they are never very far away." She wiped a few tears from her face. "He came to my flat. He asked me to help him to track down something that was stolen."

"And you've no idea what it was?" Joan asked.

"I refused to help."

Joan leaned forward a bit. "So you knew him well when you were living back in China?"

Soo Lin nodded. "Oh yes." She looked up at Sherlock. "He's my brother. Two orphans – We had no choice. We could work for the Black Lotus, or starve on the streets like beggars. My brother has become their puppet, in the power of the one they call Shan – the Black Lotus general. I turned my brother away. He said I had betrayed him. Next day I came to work and the cipher was waiting."

Sherlock laid the photographs on the table. "Can you decipher these?"

Soo Lin leaned forward and pointed to the mark beside Sir William's portrait. "These are numbers."

"Yes, I know."

She pointed to another photograph. "Here: the line across the man's eyes – it's the Chinese number one."

Sherlock pointed to the first photo. "And this one is fifteen. But what's the code?"

"All the smugglers know it. It's based upon a book…" Just then, almost all the lights went out. Soo Lin looked up in dread. Sherlock straightened up and looked around sharply. "He's here." She said softly, her face full of terror. "Zhi Zhu. He has found me."

Sherlock raced across the room. Joan calls to him softly but urgently. "Sh-Sherlock. Sherlock, wait!" He charged out of the room. Joan turned to Soo Lin and grabbed her hand. "Come here." The doctor pulled the Chinese girl across the room towards a small cupboard. "Get in. Get in!"

Outside, Sherlock raced across a large open foyer with a staircase at each end and a balcony surrounding the floor above. He stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. From his right, a figure ran across the balcony and fired a pistol at him. He turned and ran in the opposite direction, flinging himself to the floor and sliding along it to take shelter behind a statue on a low plinth. The figure fired a couple more times as Sherlock scrambles behind the plinth.

In the restoration room, Joan looked up at the sound of gunfire, then turned to Soo Lin. "I have to go and help. Bolt the door after me." She hurried off as Soo Lin's face filled with dread.

Joan made her way cautiously out into the foyer, then ducked and ran for cover as more gunshots rang out. The figure ran back across the balcony and disappeared from view. Sherlock came out from behind the plinth and dashed across the foyer and up the stairs. Joan peered out from behind a column at the other end of the foyer as Sherlock reached the top of the stairs and teared around the corner. He pelted into another display room as the gunman ran out of cover behind him and fired again.

Sherlock ducked behind a display cabinet displaying some ancient skulls as the figure continued to fire. "Careful!" Sherlock called out as the gunman fired again. "Some of those skulls are over two hundred thousand years old! Have a bit of respect!" He paused for a couple of seconds, breathing heavily. There were no more gunshots. "Thank you!" There was no more sound from the gunman. After a moment Sherlock frowned, then carefully peered through the glass of the case.

In the restoration room, Soo Lin looked up anxiously and took in a shaky breath, slowly beginning to crawl out of her hiding place. On the desk, paperwork was fluttering in a slight breeze. Soo Lin crawled to the edge of the table and peered over the top of it before slowly standing up. Behind her, a Chinese man a little older than her silently walked up and stopped just behind her, staring at her intently. As if sensing him, she turned slowly around, and then gazed at him with affection as she recognized him. She softly greeted him by name. "亮 [Liang.]" She hesitated for a moment. "大哥 [Big brother.]" She reached out and cupped his face with her hand. "请你 [Please ...]"

As Joan continued to search for her friend, a single gunshot rang out in the distance. She turns towards the sound, her face filling with appalled horror as he realized where the shot had come from. "Oh my God."

She raced back to the stairs and ran down them, across the foyer and back to the restoration room. Entering the room, she slowed down and looked around cautiously for any sign of the gunman. Carefully making her way across the room, she stopped and then groaned in despair and guilt at the sight which greeted her. Soo Lin lay dead on the table, her outstretched arm revealing a black origami lotus flower in her upturned hand.


	12. Tong

_Lookit that! We just passed the chapter amount for the first story in this installment, "A Study in Joan"! Woo!  
_

* * *

At New Scotland Yard, Joan and Sherlock were standing a short distance away from Dimmock, who had his back to them and was rummaging through paperwork on a desk as if trying to ignore them. "How many murders is it gonna take before you start believing that this maniac's out there?" Dimmock ignored Joan's question as he turned and walked in between them, heading for another desk. Joan turned round and followed him. "A young girl was gunned down tonight. That's three victims in three days. You're supposed to be finding him."

Sherlock walked across in front of Joan to get nearer to Dimmock. Joan stepped back and walked a few paces away in exasperation. "Brian Lukis and Eddie Van Coon were working for a gang of international smugglers – a gang called the Black Lotus operating here in London _right_ under your nose." Sherlock said, leaning closer to Dimmock to emphasize his last point.

Dimmock finally looked round to him. "Can you prove that?" Sherlock straightened up thoughtfully.

* * *

In the canteen St. Bartholomew's Hospital, of mortician Molly Hooper was looking at the choices in the self-service display.

"What are you thinking: pork or the pasta?" Sherlock appeared next to her.

She turned in surprise at his voice beside her. "Oh, it's you!"

"This place is never going to trouble Egon Ronay, is it?" He smiled at her, then nodded to the display. "I'd stick with the pasta. Don't wanna be doing roast pork – not if you're slicing up cadavers." Again, he smiled at her. She grinned nervously.

"What are you having?" Molly asked him.

"Don't eat when I'm working. Digesting slows me down."

"So you're working here tonight?"

"Need to examine some bodies."

"'Some'?"

"Eddie Van Coon and Brian Lukis."

Molly looked at the clipboard she was holding. "They're on my list."

"Could you wheel them out again for me?" Sherlock asked.

"Well…the paperwork's already gone through." She said, apologetically.

He lifted his eyes a little as if noticing something, and pointed at her hair. "You've…changed your hair."

"What?"

"The-the style: it's usually parted in the middle."

"Yes, well…"

"Mmm, it's good; it, um, suits you better this way." Once again, he wheeled out the smile.

She returned it, looking both flattered and flustered, then turned away to the display, her smile fading. "There's no need to pretend, Sherlock; you already like someone else, and I know who it is. I'm not stupid."

Sherlock's smile dropped. "'Course you're not. You're the best pathologist I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few."

Molly's smile came back with a slight giggle. "Thank you, I think. I'll wheel those bodies out for you, soon as I get something to eat."

* * *

Later, two body bags were lying on adjacent tables in the morgue. Molly, wearing latex gloves, unzipped one of the bags and pulled the sides apart to reveal the face of Brian Lukis. Sherlock lead Dimmock into the room. "We're just interested in the feet." The detective said.

"The feet?" The mortician frowned.

"Yes. D'you mind if we have a look at them?" Smiling at her, he lead Dimmock to the other end of the body bag.

Molly followed him and unzipped the bag at that end, pulling the sides back to reveal the bottom of Lukis' feet. On the bottom of the right heel is a tattoo identical to the one which Soo Lin showed him and Joan earlier. Sherlock straightened up, a smug expression on his face, and walked over to the other table. "Now Van Coon."

Dimmock and Molly followed him to the second table and she unzipped the other body bag. Van Coon had an identical tattoo on his right heel. Dimmock sighed silently.

"Oh!" Sherlock said in fake surprise, gesturing to the tattoo.

Dimmock said, awkwardly,"So…"

"So either these two men just happened to visit the same Chinese tattoo parlor or I'm telling the truth."

"What do you want?" Dimmock sighed in resignation."

"I want every book from Lukis' apartment _and_ Van Coon's."

"Their books?"

* * *

Sherlock and Joan walked into their living room, taking off their coats. Joan sat down in her chair; Sherlock remained standing.  
"Not just a criminal organization; it's a cult. Her brother was corrupted by one of its leaders."

"Soo Lin said the name."

"Yes, Shan; General Shan."

"We're still no closer to finding them."

"Wrong. We've got almost all we need to know. She gave us most of the missing pieces." He looked at Joan, waiting for her to agree. When Joan said nothing, he impatiently explained. "Why did he need to visit his sister? Why did he need _her_ expertise?"

"She worked at the museum."

"Exactly."

Joan finally caught up. "An expert in antiquities. Mmm, of course. I see."

"_Valuable_ antiquities, Joan. Ancient Chinese relics purchased on the black market. China's home to a thousand treasures hidden after Mao's revolution."

"And the Black Lotus is selling them."

Sherlock tilted his head as he had an idea.

* * *

Not long afterwards, he was sitting at the dining table surfing Crispians' website for recent auctions, focusing on the auctions of Chinese and other Asian works of art. Joan was leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. "Check for the dates…" He pointed to a particular auction lot – two Chinese Ming vases. "Here, Joan."

"Mmm."

"Arrived from China four days ago." He ran his finger down the details and looked at the Sale Information at the bottom, which includes the statement 'Source – Anonymous'. "Anonymous. Vendor doesn't give his name. Two undiscovered treasures from the East."

"One in Lukis' suitcase and one in Van Coon's." Joan said.

Sherlock moved to the Quest search site and types into the search bar, narrating as he does so. "…Chinese antiquities sold at auction." The results list popped up. "Look, here's another one."

"Mmm."

"Arrived from China a month ago: Chinese ceramic statue, sold four hundred thousand. [As in, it sold for £400,000.]"

Joan consulted Lukis' diary as she spotted another entry on the screen. "Ah, look: a month before that – a Chinese painting, half a million."

"All of them from an anonymous source. They're stealing them back in China and one by one they're feeding them into Britain."

"Huh." She looked at Lukis' diary again and then at the printout of Van Coon's calendar. "And every single auction coincides with Lukis or Van Coon travelling to China."

"So what if one of them got greedy when they were in China? What if one of them stole something?"

"That's why Zhi Zhu's come."

Mrs. Hudson knocked on the open door of the living room. "Ooh-ooh!" Sherlock and Joan turn to her. "Sorry. Are we collecting for charity, Sherlock?"

"What?"

"A young man's outside with crates of books."

* * *

_Little bitty note: The Molly and Sherlock scene was a bit tricky for me to write; I usually ship Sherlolly (no haters, please) so I was all like, "No, Sherlock can't do much more than compliment her hair. That's. It." XP If this wasn't a Sherlock/Joan fic, I'd prolly have them kiss. Again, No Haters, Please!_

_I'll try my best to get the next chapter up soon! Peace!_


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